


Make an Addams of You Yet

by Metal_Chocobo



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_Chocobo/pseuds/Metal_Chocobo
Summary: Five Times the Addams Family Taught Parker Something and One Time She Taught Them.
Relationships: Fester Addams/Margaux Needler, Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	Make an Addams of You Yet

**Author's Note:**

> I started this shortly after first seeing the 2019 Addams Family film, wrote the first couple scenes and then lost all steam on completing this story. However, recently I was inspired to finish the fic. So have some Parker feels, as she was the best new addition from the movie (sorry Ichabod).

####  **I: Aim**

“Just hold it steady and… there,” Wednesday said, releasing her grip so that Parker held the crossbow all on her own.

“It’s heavier than I expected,” Parker said and immediately dropped the crossbow.

When the weapon hit the dirt it dug in just enough to press the trigger, releasing the arrow. Instead of hitting the bullseye that Wednesday had so carefully helped her line up, the arrow bounced off the chain suspending the target with an audible plink, ricocheted off a glass pane of the Addams’s greenhouse, and sailed into an open upper story window.

A moment later Fester’s head appeared as he leaned out of the window. The arrow protruded from the tip of his nose and waggled in response to his movements.

“Who shot this arrow?” Fester demanded.

“I-I did,” Parker admitted. “It was my first time.”

“Great shot!” Fester shouted. He yanked the arrow out of his nose and waved it in the air. “This is going on the mantle when we get home! I can’t wait to tell your mother!”

Parker cringed. She would probably be less thrilled about it than he was. 

“Unorthodox approach, but surprisingly effective. Certainly better than Pugsley,” Wednesday said. She had retrieved the crossbow and held another arrow in her opposite hand. “Would you like to try again?”

“Okay?” Parker said, not entirely sure she wanted to do so, however she accepted the crossbow handily enough and loaded the arrow as Wednesday had shown her.

“Excellent. We’ll make an Addams of you yet.”

####  **II: En Garde**

Parker went into the Addams’s family library. She needed a book for her history report, but didn’t have any at home since her mother didn’t believe in what she called ‘needless clutter.’ However, what she found wasn’t a book, but a rapier, which was immediately hurled at her. Squeaking in terror Parker held up her hands to protect her face. When the rapier hit her hands she found herself automatically closing them around it. Lowering her hands slowly she realized she was now awkwardly holding a sword.

“Good show, sport!” Gomez boomed as he leaped down from the top of a bookcase. He held another rapier. “Fester says you’ve never fenced a day in your life, but I can see you have natural talent!”

“What?” Parker asked.

“En garde!” Gomez shouted and lunged at her with his rapier.

She would have screamed, but her throat felt like it had collapsed and her eyes shut to avoid witnessing her messy end. Still, her body tried to defend itself. She felt something heavy jar her arms as a metallic clang rang out. Then suddenly the pressure was off and she heard a distant thud.

“Good show, old man, and what interesting technique! I’ve never seen anyone handle a saber this way before.”

Parker opened her eyes. She held the rapier by its point with the grip and guard nearly in Gomez’s face. He was grinning widely. Looking around she spotted his rapier embedded in the wall, still bending wildly up and down. Without taking his eyes off her, he walked over to the blade and yanked it out of the wall.

“Again,” he said, assuming a fencer’s stance.

This time Parker managed to get her hands on the rapier’s grip before they clashed.

Parker got poked several times before she escaped the library. It wasn’t until she had firmly shut the door behind her and she could no longer hear her blood pounding in her ears that she realized she hadn’t been able to grab a book. She also still held the sword.

“Keep the sword, I have twenty!” Gomez shouted through the door as if he were reading her mind. “We’ll duel again, some time next Tuesday!”

She had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to escape the engagement.

####  **III: Target Locked On**

Parker climbed onto the roof of the park’s gazebo beside Pugsley. He was kneeling on the shingles precariously balanced as he aimed his slingshot at some target in the distance. Perhaps hanging out with Wednesday was paying off because he hadn’t noticed her presence.

“What are you doing?” Parker asked.

He yelped and dropped his ammunition. When the metal ball hit the ground it made a small popping explosion.

“Target practice,” Pugsley replied.

“On what?” While she knew she couldn’t take on most of the Addamses, Parker was fairly certain she could swipe his ammo bag successfully if she disapproved of his choices. No one was blowing up squirrels on her watch.

“Them.” Pugsley pointed a finger at a flock of cheerleaders. Bethany was front and center. “Wednesday says I’m allowed to practice on bullies or family and I don’t see any family around.”

While she wanted to agree with Wednesday’s rules, she couldn’t in good conscience allow Pugsley to maim a human being—even if Bethany had spent all her free time making Parker feel inhuman. She confiscated the bag.

“I’m sorry, Pugsley, but I can’t let you injure them. Even bullies don’t deserve to have body parts blown off.”

“You think these can do that?” Pugsley laughed. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out another small explosive. This one he smacked onto his knee. It exploded, leaving being a lot of soot and reddened, but otherwise intact, flesh. “Mom says that until she’s confident I can sew my fingers back on myself I’m barred from using the good stuff.”

“Have you ever tried to sew your fingers back on?” Parker asked. His hands seemed badly scarred, but she never would have guessed that any of Pugsley’s fingers had been reattached.

“Once. I put most of them on backwards. It was a cool effect, but as Wednesday put it, highly impractical. I couldn’t hold an axe,” Pugsley explained. He wiggled the fingers on his free hand. “Thing had to undo all my stitching and put them on properly. He’s a real whiz with a needle.”

“Thing,” Parker frowned. She had met most of the relatives now and spent enough time at the main house that she ought to be familiar with its inhabitants, but she couldn’t put a face to the name.

“He’s short, a good listener, and very handy. Ask for him the next time you stop by and I’m sure he’ll be happy to introduce himself.” Pugsley paused and vigorously scratched at his scalp for a moment before yanking a beetle out of his hair and popping it in his mouth. He crunched several times and then offered her his slingshot. “Hey, do you want to try?”

“Sure,” Parker said, surprising herself. Once she had her target lined up she pulled the pocket back as far as she could and let the bomb fly. 

####  **IV: A Touch of Belladonna**

“I’m so sorry, Parker, but Wednesday is still out burying her father,” Morticia said. “Would you like to help me in the garden until she returns?”

“Yes please,” Parker said. She followed Morticia out to the garden bed surrounding the gazebo.

“Take these and help me prune.” Morticia handed over a pair of garden shears. She had a second pair and delicately snipped the head off a luscious red rose. “Trim them just like this.”

This wasn’t what she had expected, but Parker dutifully lopped off the head of every rose in the vicinity. When she was finished she stood in a sea of rose petals. If Morticia didn’t want them her mother probably would, but Parker didn’t move to collect any.

“Ah, don’t the thorns look far more lovely now?” Morticia sighed as she plucked a now headless rose and stuck it behind her ear. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Parker said. She reached out and lightly grasped the petals of a star shaped lavender flower with a yellow center. “Do you want those cut off as well?”

“No, I use every part of my belladonna plants sooner or later. It’s an essential part of the children’s favorite tea and I use it in many other recipes.”

“Belladonna?” Parker asked. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t big on plants and couldn’t place it.

“Deadly Nightshade is another name for it,” Morticia explained.

“Oh,” Parker gulped, gingerly letting go of the plant.

“I have a modest collection of poisons,” Morticia said, clipping one of the springs of belladonna and weaving it into Parker’s hair. “Would you like to learn about them?”

“Okay,” Parker shrugged. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do right now and if she knew what was poisonous out here, she’d know what not to mess with in the future.

“How wonderful.” Morticia guided Parker toward the center of the garden. “I’ve tried to impart this knowledge to my own children, but they simply aren’t that interested in plants, outside of Ichabod of course. With your disposition I believe you could have two green thumbs, Parker.”

“Great,” Parker mumbled, realizing she was in over her head again.

By the time Wednesday returned and was ready to play Parker had been gifted a starting planter consisting of Morticia’s favorite varieties. Ideally, she could start a garden of her own, perhaps in her room’s window box since Margaux wouldn’t care what she put there. She was actually looking forward to this project because she could log every step of the process on Instagram and as long as she didn’t eat her plants, nothing about this hobby seemed inherently dangerous compared with everything else the Addams Family offered. Then a fly buzzed too close to the planter and one of the plants twisted around to bite it in two.

Parker gulped, suddenly less sure of this endeavor.

####  **V: Never Fear, Fester is Here!**

Parker woke to the crack of thunder. Her room was pitch black, which was wrong on so many levels. Her nightlight—which she hid when she wasn’t actively using it because she would die if Wednesday or her mother found out she still needed one at thirteen for blisteringly different reasons—wasn’t working. She hoped the bulb had simply burned out and not that Margaux had found and taken another one away.

All the short hairs on her body stood on end because she couldn’t see and if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t tell what was lying in wait for her. In the dark. It took a herculean amount of effort to reach out and find the lamp on her nightstand. As soon as she flipped it on things would be okay again. She’d be able to see.

She twisted the knob and it made an audible clicking noise. No light came on. She twisted it again and again and again. Nothing happened. Parker choked down a sob. If she made a noise _Things_ might find her in the dark. She didn’t know what could possibly be in her normally safe bedroom, but she didn’t want to attract the attention of anything at all. Not when she was so scared and vulnerable. She didn’t know where her flashlights had gone; she hadn’t seen them since the move.

There was a flash of lightning, which briefly illuminated her room as if it were full daylight. There was a round white face less than a foot away from hers. Parker screamed.

“Ah, you’re awake,” Fester said. “The power’s out. I wanted to make certain you were okay.”

“You were watching me sleep?” Parker asked, feeling oddly comforted that in this case the thing in the dark was only Fester.

“Only for a minute. I like watching your mom sleep though. Did you know Margaux makes this wheezy snore when she’s dreaming?”

“No,” Parker choked out, shutting her eyes. Because even if Fester wasn’t a scary thing in the dark, she didn’t know what else was out there. There could be massive centipedes crawling on her pillow or skeletal hands scuttling along the walls. She didn’t even want to think about what could be on the floor. These things wouldn’t bother the Addamses, but they sure as heck scared her and she couldn’t turn the part of her brain that generated these worries off.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m afraid of the dark,” Parker snapped. “It’s stupid. I’m thirteen, this shouldn’t scare me any more, but it does.”

“That’s not stupid, we all have our own fears. Here, hold on,” Fester said. She could hear him rooting around the inner folds of his trench coat where he held a number of strange objects. Then in a more muffled tone he said, “Parker, open your eyes.”

When she opened her eyes she could see the cheery glow of an incandescent bulb emitting from his face. Fester had lit up a light bulb by sticking it in his mouth. It wasn’t very bright, but she could see some of her room again and felt much calmer.

“How are you doing that?” Parker asked.

“Natural talent,” Fester replied as he screwed a light bulb into each ear, which turned his head into a rather well lit lamp. “Do you want me to stay until the power comes back on or morning dawns?”

“Please,” Parker said, nodding her head fervently. She didn’t want to be left in the dark.

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Fester mumbled and heaved himself onto her desk chair. There was an odd splashing noise as he settled in place. Then he pulled a comic book out and flipped it open. “I’ll be here until you don’t need me anymore.”

“Thanks Fester,” Parker said. She meant it. Neither one of her parents had ever offered to stay with her when she was scared before. Yet her new stepfather was willing to be a living nightlight for her.

She didn’t have any trouble lying back down and pulling her covers over her shoulders. Parker shut her eyes and was lulled to sleep by the sound of Fester cackling over his comic.

####  **VI: Social Media Training at its Finest**

“Parker Needler, you put that phone down while you’re at dinner,” Margaux snapped. “This is family time.”

“Dinner hadn’t really started yet,” Parker protested before mumbling quietly, “and it’s not like you aren’t on yours just as much at home.”

“What is the appeal?” Wednesday asked. “You said it doesn’t really ensnare souls.”

“It’s a way of connecting with other people from long distance,” Parker said. She held up her phone to show Wednesday her screen. “I post something on this site and people react to it or comment on my creation. The more views I get, the more I know people are looking at my stuff and admiring my work. That’s a pretty good feeling to have.”

“Hmm,” Wednesday said.

“Why would you care what other people think?” Pugsley asked.

“Why wouldn’t I care? People are amazing!” Parker said. She opened an app on her phone then gently set it down on the table so that Pugsley and Wednesday could both view the screen. “Take my friend Lydia, we haven’t seen each other in person since we both lived in New York, but we’ve stayed in touch online. She’s been super supportive of my lifestyle changes and we’ve bonded again over our shared aesthetic. She’s this artsy goth in Connecticut now who takes wicked cool photos and I’m just in awe of them. See?”

Parker scrolled through some of Lydia’s posts, taking time to show off some of her favorites. Pugsley lost interest quickly, but Wednesday continued to look, even going as far as to take Parker’s phone and raise an eyebrow, so Parker knew she was riveted.

“I can do a lot more with my phone than just take photos, video, and stay in touch with friends,” Parker continued. “You love explosions, Pugsley?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Pugsley grinned.

“YouTube’s full of them. If you can imagine an explosion, I can almost guarantee someone’s posted video of it there. If you think you can make a better version, you can film it, and post it there for other people to see. The internet has everything.”

“Really?” Pugsley perked up and reached for Parker’s phone. “Can I see?”

Wednesday ignored him, save for holding the phone high enough to be out of his reach.

“There are also tons of explosions in video games, which you can play online with friends or strangers,” Parker continued. “I think you’d enjoy being a gamer, even if they aren’t technically real explosions.”

“I wanna play games,” Pugsley growled and launched himself at the phone. Wednesday deftly avoided the tackle, but her brother caught one of her braids and it quickly devolved into a wrestling match on the floor. Parker retrieved her phone.

“Ah children, always so spirited,” Gomez laughed. 

“How I wish we could join in their interests,” Morticia sighed.

“Morticia, I bet you’d like all the gardening and recipe blogs out there. Mom had her own dedicated site while she was still with The Home and Garden Network, which was focused on landscaping and renovations,” Parker said. “If you got really into it, you could make a blog with your own signature flair.”

Gomez lit a cigar, took a few puffs, and turned to Parker. “Is there anything on that internet for an old dog like me?”

“Tons! Ah, I’m not really sure what you’d be interested in exactly, Gomez,” Parker admitted. “But you could always Google it.”

“Google… what is that?”

“It’s a search engine. Have a question or just want to learn about something? Type it into the bar and Google will find it for you.” Parker demonstrated this feature for Gomez. He eagerly took the phone to try it for himself. “There are others out there as well, but I typically just use Google.”

“Google is wrong!” Gomez announced.

“About what?”

“I typed in ‘most beautiful woman in the world’ and it did not show Morticia!” Gomez shouted. He gripped the phone like he was about to throw it. Parker feared for her property.

“Calm yourself, dear,” Morticia said, patting his arm and then kissed his cheek. The attention from his wife had an immediate effect and Parker was able to yank her phone out of his loosened grip before Gomez pulled Morticia into a tight embrace. “The world simply doesn’t see me through your eyes.”

“Tish, you are the most exquisite creature on the planet,” Gomez said, kissing her arm. “How can they not see it?”

“Maybe they don’t know?” Parker suggested. “You could tell them about her. Make websites devoted solely to Morticia if you really wanted to. If you do decide to do that, you’d better get your own computer and wi-fi.”

“Yes! I will tell the whole world of your beauty!” Gomez shouted, throwing a fist in the air. “By the time I’m done the whole world will hear vultures sing and krakens cackle when they hear the name Morticia!”

“Oh Gomez,” Morticia sighed.

She kissed him intensely enough to make Parker distinctly uncomfortable. To avoid the gross adults, Parker turned to look at Margaux and Fester. Margaux seemed rather fed up by the antics of the Addamses, while Fester simply beamed at her.

“Really Parker?” Margaux said in that tone that meant she was upset, but Parker didn’t know what she had done wrong this time. “Did you really have to stir them all up right before dinner?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Parker said. She stuffed her phone in her pocket before her mom could take it away. Again.

“It’s okay, family dinner always turns out this way,” Fester said, waving his hands as if that would disperse the tension. “Parker, I’ve been meaning to ask, what do you think I’d like if I was online?”

“I dunno,” Parker shrugged.

“Thing says you can find all sorts of great niches, but won’t tell me what sort of stuff he’s into.” Fester jerked a thumb at Thing, who was currently riding his shoulder. “He’s being awfully tight-lipped for a hand with no mouth about where he surfs the ‘net. That’s a thing the kids still say, right? Surfing the net?”

“No,” Parker laughed, wondering where he got his lingo. Fester just shrugged. The thought of him on a dating website briefly flashed through her mind, but besides the fact he had already married her mom, unleashing him on such a site was best not to consider. She thought for a minute. At his core Fester just wanted to help his family. “You could… trawl the realtor websites? Look at places like Zillow for current house listings or help Mom with the online presence for your business? That would be good. Maybe.”

“Yes,” Fester said.

“Absolutely not,” Margaux snapped. She turned to Fester, pursed her lips, and said, “Fester, you’re the silent partner in our arrangement. You’re seen on our ads and I couldn’t possibly burden you with any more work toward the business.”

“But I want to help!”

“You help more than enough. I promise,” Margaux said, patting Fester’s free shoulder. “Why don’t you get on the program Parker’s always on? You two could bond over that.”

“You want him on Instagram?” Parker asked.

“Sure,” Fester said.

“Whatever,” Margaux said.

“How do I start?” Fester asked. Parker glanced at Margaux, who made a go on gesture, so it was clear she was going to force Parker to do this. She was definitely getting punished, but Fester didn’t realize and therefore she couldn’t really blame him. “Can we be friends on this? Are there friends in this app?”

Parker sighed and logged out of her account. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it right. By the time Lurch arrived with the soup Wednesday had soundly beaten Pugsley, Gomez and Morticia looked thoroughly ravished, and it turned out that under the right filter Fester had strikingly attractive eyelashes. Fester had also promised Parker he’d get them new matching phones, which was probably the last thing Margaux wanted, so really Parker had won in the battle of allowing Fester online. She had a feeling he’d develop a cult following, not that she’d want to be anywhere near that cult.

Parker looked around the room as everyone returned to their seats. She was surrounded by happy grinning faces—and Wednesday, who wasn’t smiling, but Parker could tell she was happy as well—sitting down for a family dinner. That never happened when her mom and dad were still together and she couldn’t remember the last time Margaux had eaten with her before the Addams Family came into their life. She felt genuinely lucky to be part of this family, even if no one believed half the videos she posted these days that featured them because they were too extreme. Parker looked forward to learning more from her new family about how to be an Addams and in the process, teach them a little about everyone else.


End file.
